Life at the Thin end of the Net Draft of article in the London Guardian by Peter Judge - Tel: (44)71 652 0827

Is the Internet bringing the world together, or is it driving the
info-haves and the have-nots further apart? Are net-surfers the
vanguard of a new 'open' society, or an elite playing with tools denied
to the rest of the world?

Nashwa Abdul-Baki of Cairo University has a clear answer: 'Once people
know the Internet, if the line goes down for one minute, they complain.'
She should know; she is at the thin end of the Net, running Egypt's
tenuous link into cyberspace. She supports up to 78 000 users in several
centres across the country. And all these users, including business
people, share a single line with a bandwidth which would not satisfy an
individual hobbyist in the UK - 9600 bit/s.

Last month, Ms Abdul-Baki spent a week in Prague, with 165 other
networkers from 80 countries, at a training workshop for
'technologically emerging countries' sponsored by the Internet Society.
The workshop, the latest in a series, aimed to educate local 'champions'
who can set up and run Internet connections in their own countries: 'It
will have a major impact on the development of the global information
infrastructure,' said the workshop leader, George Sadowsky of New York
University.

It is not before time. Despite its claims to be the new global
information highway, the Internet's map of the world resembles a
medieval mariner's chart, albeit a mariner who set out from California.
Most of Africa is a complete blank; the Far East has conspicuous holes,
and Eastern Europe is still scarcely charted, while South America is
sketched in pretty firmly.

The Internet connects more than 150 countries, but there are around 90
more outside it, and the have-nots all number among the world's poorer
countries, according to Tony Rutkowski, executive director of the
Internet Society - the governing body of the Internet (insofar as it has
one).

The Society sponsored the workshop, to try and redress the balance. It
was held in Prague to minimise Eastern Europeans' travel costs, and
followed by the Internet Society's joint conference with RARE, the
European research networking body. The Czech Republic gained an extra 2
1/2M bit/s of permanent Internet bandwidth, set up for the conference by
BT, MCI and the Dante academic network.

The workshop students came from Africa, the Far East and Eastern Europe.
Two even made it from Sarajevo, evading snipers and draft notices for
the chance to get their country on the Infobahn. The syllabus was set
by the students, with Ms Abdul Baki leading one stream; the teachers
were all volunteers.

Most delegates had their fees and expenses paid, by a range of sponsors
including UN agencies. Ironically, after years of trying to keep the
Soviets out, NATO financed students from the former Soviet Union, who
want access to Western networks.

Financier George Soros paid for many of the students, and has used his
money to support Internet links in Albania, Bulgaria, Burma, Macedonia,
Romania and Slovenia.'The Internet is the prototype of an open society,'
he told the conference, in a keynote speech which the lack of support
the West has given to countries emerging from Communist rule was partly
to blame for ethnic violence.

Mr Soros sees Internet as a tool which can break down divisions within
countries, and allow them to participate more fully in international
commerce and diplomacy. 'Computer networking can provide an important
tool and an inspiration,' he said.

The Russian Internet provider takes up this theme: it is called Glasnet.

The workshop was possible because rich-world development agencies now
accept that telecommunications (and Internet in particular) can form
part of a country's basic infrastructure. They are ready to give funds
to support it. In many cases, the agency itself uses Internet and the
costs of basic local access will be paid back in the savings made on
couriers, postal services and fax machines.

The US Agency for International Development (US AID), for example, is
shortly to give telecommunications a place alongside other programmes
such as health, manufacturing, and education.

But there is a price to be paid by newcomers to the Net. They have to
adopt American technology and the English language; for the majority of
the world, even the alphabet on the keyboard is foreign. But most
countries are ready to pay this price, for without telecommunications,
they will be excluded from business in the 21st century.

Relatively privileged countries, such as the Eastern Europeans can even
leapfrog to current technology, avoiding the costly detours and failed
experiments which have littered the West's development.

But despite all this, the 'information deficit' between rich and poor
may be getting wider, and the worst-hit area is Africa. African
participation was down from last year's Internet conference, and many
African countries still have no Internet link at all. Agencies like US
AID are closing offices in Africa and shifting their attention to
Eastern Europe.

Western net-surfers have graphical browsers like Mosaic, and experiment
with voice and video links (your reporter appeared on an Internet video
link from Prague to Stockholm). Our superhighway will be based on high
bandwidth broadband technology. Meanwhile, Africa is struggling with
second-hand modems and obsolete technology, in countries where telephone
penetration may be less than 0.1 percent of the population.

It is here that the argument gets heated - and technical. Where a
permanent connection is not available, it is possible to store messages,
and forward them in bursts to other systems using phone lines. After a
series of hops, the messages (should) reach the Internet, and get passed
to their destination.

Is this technology obsolete rubbish being dumped on the Third World, or
is it 'appropriate', and adapted to unreliable communications? This
style of working was brought to Africa by the GreenNet organisation,
which promotes ecological and development issues through its networks.

The UUCP system, based on UNIX machines, can be upgraded to a full
Internet connection. South Africa is supporting UUCP links in
neighbouring countries, and hopes to set up a regional Internet agency.
Other countries, including Zambia, rely on Fido, a PC-based system. It
is cheaper and more reliable, but less compatible.

'Fido is for conversations between friends, not for building an
infrastructure,' said one African delegate. 'Every Fido in Africa is a
nail in Africa's coffin. Once you've got Fido in, it is an immense job
to move users on to the Internet.'

'Bullshit,' said Suchit Nanda, who runs a Fido bulletin board service as
well as Internet connections to India. 'I have a 64k bit/s line running
and I still use Fido. It is the most economical solution.'

It ia also less of a threat to the local telecommunications authorities,
whose power to influence regulations is a crucial factor in many
developing countries (and in the developed world too, of course).

In the end, the fundamental problems are not technological: 'People
looking for a technical solution are faced with all the problems of
developing countries,' says Dave Spooner of the One Foundation, a
technology-centred development agency based in Amsterdam. 'These
include broader developmental questions, such as political, cultural and
linguistic issues.'

Governments often do not understand the issues involved: rather than
welcome the links which local businesses need, the Indian Government
sees bulletin boards as a revenue opportunity. Suchit Nanda is fighting
a proposal to levy a $5000 annual licence fee on every bulletin board in
India, which would kill grassroots support for the Net.

The local champions have to fight on several fronts. They must convince
their government of the value of what they are doing, access whatever
foreign funds are available, and somehow cobble a system together from
whatever technology is available.

Most importantly, they must build local support. Educating and informing
users of the possibilities can be the hardest task of all. One Westerner
innocently suggested to an Africans' meeting that they should use press
coverage to build grassroots support. 'We can't do that,' was one reply.
'If the government found out what we were doing, it would shut us down.'

These people are pioneers, ready to take risks to promote something
crucial to life in the 21st century. Said Suchit Nanda: 'The carrier is
like our heartbeat.'